Dust to Digital

“It sounds like aiming when you’re shooting a basketball. It’s not gonna work,” Zach Lupetin of L.A. roots, soul and Americana act Dustbowl Revival tells me over the phone. I’m talking to him about fighting perfectionism while in the studio. And Lupetin says working with producer Ted Hutt, known for working with Old Crow Medicine Show and Lucero, added a punk-rock mentality to his band’s latest self-titled effort. “He wanted us to just go in there and kick the shit out of a song. He was able to harness that from us.”

A large band, Dustbowl plays everything from R&B, string music, dirty jazz and pre-war blues to funk — crowned by fiery soul-sister vocals provided by Liz Beebe. “If you could see me now!” she hollers defiantly off an album-track of the same name, standing tall on a pedestal of New Orleans-style horns and a badass groove. But Lupetin says while Dustbowl once paid homage to these styles, with their latest release they’ve developed their own sound.

“Putting our stamp on our version of bluegrass, our version of brass band music and soul,” Lupetin says. “An Americana, soul, roots thing.” But when it comes to describing his band, Lupetin challenges people to simply come to a show and find out. “It’s about the community supporting live music,” he says.